


Pendulum

by Runespoor



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubble, Gen, heroic or just, the careful balancing of friendship and enmity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 15:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At some point, you've got to come to terms with your own mortality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pendulum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oxfordRoulette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/gifts).



_tick_

Dying was more painful the first time, but maybe that's only because she had the time to see it coming, feeling every drop of blood seeping from her veins. Bleeding to death lasted an excruciating stretch of time, as if someone with the power to had grabbed both ends of that strip of life, and stretched it like a rubber band. 

She asks Aradia once, vicious, pained words that come out of nowhere and leave her gaping.

“Did you do it on purpose? If I'd known you had it in you, I wouldn't have held back all these years ago!”

Aradia looks at her with something that's so dispassionate as to verge on boredom, and Vriska's wings bristle into existence in her back. Aradia's not the only god tier in this little outfit, and Vriska's better at it than Aradia is anyway. 

“Vriska, if I'd wanted you to die slowly, you'd still be there.” She cocks her head to the side, considering. “In fact, there's a timeline where I did. Only because it was already doomed, but I think killing you was satisfying, until the timeline caught up with us. You can ask other-me, when you find her.”

It's nothing new that Aradia can be a bitch. That's one of the two or three basic personality traits Vriska looked for in most of her regular acquaintances, because what was the point of getting to know people she wasn't going to feed to Spidermom if they were boring? But it's been a while that Aradia bothered being a bitch to Vriska, what with being dead then a robot then a godtier who was too busy zipping in and out of the timeline (supposedly) to give a troll the time of the day.

Kind of nostalgic. Vriska snorts, and plops back down on the veiny red rock that makes up the ground. A distance away, a small fountain of a dark red liquid burbles in gushes. Wherever she is, the place is far less interesting than the Land of Maps and Treasures ever was.

“Can't believe how booooooooring you got for a while there after I killed you. We could've have so much fun if you'd been more the way you are now. Giving back as good as you got and all.” She grins. “More lively, you know.”

“Oh, good one,” Aradia comments, and raises a hand. “Here, high-five.”

Vriska can't help glancing down at her left arm, even if the effect falls flat, now that Vriska's god tier, now that she's got all her limbs back. Except she's the dead one now, she remembers.

“What, no come-back? Death really got you in a slump, huh. Well, whatever. See you around,” the Maid of Time says, and in a blink she's gone as though she'd never been there.

Losing actually sucks.

 

_tock_

Wait. Stop. Rewind.

She's Vriska Serket, she doesn't do losing. She's a god tier, she's not supposed to stay dead.

(She can't rewind.)

She's on Trollian complaining to a Terezi about it; old habits die hard. Dreambubbles are populated with versions of them, all dead, altered from the one she knew in ways sometimes subtle and sometimes grotesque. Like they just had their lifeline refracted through a kaleidoscope, still recognizably the same person. It's like watching the world with the eight-fold vision always on. 

GC: YOU SMELL L1KE L13S, VR1SK4. D1SGUST1NG, ST1NK1NG L13S!  
AG: I'm not lying!!!!!!!!  
AG: Not dying is the entire point of 8ecoming godtier. You can't kill gods, or at least you can't kill god-me!  
GC: WH4T W4S TH4T L13 4BOUT NOT LY1NG, L14R?  
AG: Ugh, I m8nt general you, o8viously.  
AG: Anyway, not the point. The point is, I got godtier scammed!!!!!!!! If I'd 8it it taking down Jack, that'd 8e one thing, but you punked me through the 8ack. You cheated.  
GC: 1SNT TH4T TH3 GRUB COOK1NG D3V1C3 C4LL1NG THE L1QU1DBO1L3R BL4CK? 1 SUR3 R3M3MB3R WH3N YOU US3D TO COMPL41N HOW 1 WOULDNT CH34T  
AG: Not 8g8nst me!  
AG: And that was different, that was a gam8le. I never lose at gam8ling!  
GC: H3NC3 WHY 1 H4D NO CHO1C3 BUT TO CH34T.  
GC: THE V3RS1ON OF M3 TH4T KILL3D YOU, 4T L34ST.

There's a pause, when it looks like Terezi's still typing a reply, and Vriska waits. Nothing more appears, though, and the pause drags on before Vriska realizes she's let it go on too long. 

AG: 8itter much? 

Vriska didn't set out planning to troll up the Terezi that let her go and find Jack. It was so much easier to be angry at Terezi for killing her when she didn't have the proof that going to fight Jack doomed her friends (she's holding out on the session. After all, maybe she won).

AG: You don't need to 8e. It means we're even.  
GC: I GU3SS 1T DO3S  
GC: S1NC3 YOUR3 ST1LL D34D  
GC: WH1CH 1 G3T W4SNT P4RT OF TH3 P4CK4G3 D34L  
GC: BUT WH1CH 1S TH3 ONLY R34SON 1M T4LK1NG TO YOU  
AG: Aw, come on, are you going to pull an Aradia on me now?  
AG: It's old news already, and it's gonna 8e even older soon!  
GC: 1F 1TS SO OLD WHY 4R3 YOU B1TCH1NG 4BOUT 1T  
GC: B3S1D3S L3TT1NG M3 T4ST3 TH3 D3L1C1OUS SCH4D3NFR3UD3  
AG: Terezi  
AG: 8luuuuuuuuh  
GC: 1T DO3SNT LOOK L1K3 YOU GOT SC4MM3D TO M3 1T LOOKS L1K3 YOU GOT M4N1PUL4T3D  
GC: M4YB3 3V3N M4N1PUL8D  
GC: H3H3H3H3  
AG: ::::/

 

GC: 1 TH1NK TH3R3 W4S 4 LOOPHOL3 YOU D1DNT 4SK 4BOUT

Terezi finally types, when the silence between them has gone on too long. And then,

GC: 3V3N WH3N YOU TH1NK YOUR3 T3LL1NG TH3 TRUTH YOUR3 ST1LL T3LL1NG L13S

that Vriska doesn't want to respond to. 

AG: Thanks, she says instead.

 

_tick_

“I think you should take it as an opportunity to grow,” Aradia informs her.

Vriska's hands are covered in the fine purple dust that is common to Derse, dulling her skin and claws like ground sand. She's been digging for clues and paths, just a little more literally that she usually likes. Her hands look like the hands of a corpse. She's been going through the dirt for a while now.

Slowly, she flexes her hands. Unbroken. The film coating her skin is faintly purple, rather than the warmer color of her own Land of Maps and Treasures. She can feel Aradia's gaze on her as she blinks, and she looks up at the godtier Aradia with both her eyes.

Aradia only raises her eyebrows. Flashbacks to painful memories are nothing new or interesting to her, which means she doesn't let them distract her from whatever Timey Whimey she intends on imparting to Vriska at the moment.

“Become a better person? Anything about this concept rings a bell?”

“I died so everyone else would live,” Vriska points out. She doesn't mention that Terezi didn't present her with a choice, or that all in all she'd still like to take her chances against Jack. Aradia knows that stuff as well as she does.

Aradia doesn't bat an eyelid.

“You brought it down on us, so I wouldn't call you the Sufferer stand-in of the sweep just yet.”

“Fuck that guy, he was boring.”

All of Vriska's knowledge of the Sufferer comes third-hand, pieced together with less care than the old coat she used to throw on to play FLARP, an echo over the sea, worn thin and ragged and inconsequential. 

Ignoring it instead of rising to the provocation is pretty much typical Aradia reaction lately.

“What are you hoping to find here, anyway?”

“Clues.”

When she asked Other-Terezi to give her a hand, for old times' sake, for the challenge, for the fun of knowing there was nothing they couldn't beat together, Terezi turned her down. 

“That's sort of your thing, right? You were always pretty much an old-stones-and-riddles dork. We could actually make a good team on this one.”

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, and out loud they sound a lot less pathetic than she'd thought they would.

Aradia looks amused, but she shakes her head. “Unlike you, I still have stuff to do.” She peers at the stone Vriska's dug up, with the crude figure of a frog engraved on the flat surface, along with a few words that aren't Alternian. “It looks like you're on the right track, though. Keep up the good work!”

 

_tock_

(It could've been worse. Aradia could have said, “unlike you, I'm still relevant to the plot.”)

 

_tick_

(Vriska's getting damn tired of dragging herself all the way in and out of dreambubbles.)

 

_tock_

(Also? She hates riddles. She did just fine getting to godtier without going through all the terrible step-by-step motions the others did. That's the way to live: identify your objective, and go for it!

That's what she's doing here, too.

There are just all these preliminary steps that have to be taken.)

 

_tick_

(It's like a sidequest.)

 

_tock_

 

_tick_

 

_tock_

 

_tock_

 

_tock_

 

Time's a maze. It's a green manor pannelled with old wood and thick carpets, where it turns itself inside out and dissolves, makes knots and unwraps in loose strands.

Eerie silence hangs around Vriska as she slips through the place, a heavy blankness muting her breath. It's not her place to be there (there are probably rules saying players aren't allowed here) but dead or not she's still a Thief, and it's her role to steal her way in. (it's a good loophole; Terezi would approve.)

And if she's dead but she still isn't allowed here, then she's never stopped being a player, and she's right to keep looking for a way of getting that back.

The air is very still, only disturbed by her walking, and the rooms she passes through smell like nothing at all.

There are pieces of furnitures she pays no attention to, trusting her luck will lead her without fail to what concerns her.

 

A tall clock crumbled half-down with its dial smashed, its hand stopped precisely on the line between “just” and “heroic”. 

Vriska's ghostly blood pounds in her ears like the tick-tock of a broken clock.

The clock's glass is cracked; when she runs her finger along, it tugs at the skin.

“So, do you feel better now you've got closure?”

She takes her hand off the broken glass before she decides to test whether dead trolls bleed in dreambubbles, and turns to face Aradia. For once the other isn't wearing her godtier outfit, but the same clothes she did when she was dead. 

A beat, during which they stare at each other, then Vriska feels her face split into a wide grin.

“ _Closure_? Are you kidding? I knew it, the game was rigged!”

“You never change, do you.”

Vriska's not paying attention; she's floating on her first rush of genuine glee since she woke up and realized she was dead. 

“I _knew_ it!!!!!!!!”

Aradia pokes at the clock with the tip of her foot, which Vriska doesn't give a fuck about now she knows her unfortunate life failure was due to external sabotage, but which does catch her attention. The grin she gives Aradia feels too big for her face, fuelled with confidence.

“What are you going to do now?” Aradia asks, casual.

“Everything,” she says.

 

 

 

 _tick_ _tock_ _tick_ _tock_ _tick_

_forward_

“You're going to have to gain a lot of levels on the post-mortem scale,” Aradia comments when Vriska comes up with her first hunch of returning to life. She doesn't sound really affected one way or another; to Aradia, the frontier between life and death has always been a lot more relative than for others. 

“ _All of them_ ,” Vriska promises. 

Aradia rolls her eyes, but doesn't raise another objection, and Vriska comfortably settles into her daydream. Returning to life, she thinks, is sure to be the next great adventure.


End file.
